The Cardiac Rehabilitation and Secondary Prevention Program was started over 30 years ago by Dr. Terry Kavanagh, an internationally recognized authority on cardiac rehabilitation and the program's founding medical director.
The success of the program changed conventional thinking about how patients recover following a cardiac incident. Since then, almost 26,000 patients have graduated from the program following a heart attack, heart disease or bypass or transplant surgery.
Throughout its history, the program has celebrated many rehabilitation firsts. In the 1970s, staff trained a group of patients recovering from heart attacks to run the Boston Marathon. This success was followed a few years later when a heart transplant patient was trained to run the same marathon in the early 1980s.
Over the years, Toronto Rehab has helped develop cardiac rehabilitation across Canada and around the world in order to help cardiac patients make the fullest possible recovery.
Each year, the program plays host to visiting physicians and other health care professionals interested in learning about cardiac rehabilitation. The current medical director is Dr. Paul Oh.